AuthorTopic: Official 2014 Canadian Joe Con News (Read 10625 times)

As for the brand overall, well, this has been an ongoing discussion throughout the Joe community. Seems Hasbro has no faith in it, which is a real shame. You'd think that with two recent relatively successful big budget movies and the 50th anniversary Joe would be on a high, but it feels like it is in one of its all-time lows. But the past 5 years or so have been so schizoid with the brand. I think they really need to find a new direction and focus everything on it rather than going to multiple directions and constantly pulling the plug after they just get started.

Blame the retailers, not Hasbro. And blame Paramount for the movie delay which killed the retailer interest in the Retaliation product and the brand.Hasbro has apparently proposed all kinds of stuff for the 50th, and apparently none of it has interested any retailers. Let's repeat that: Hasbro WANTS to unroll 50th anniversary stuff, but retailers have NO interest in carrying ANY of it.

Correction: Amazon Kindle has just today announced that GIJOE is one of the properties opened for their published fan-fiction thing. Big whoop. That MIGHT be the opening salvo in some kind of 50th Ann. Joe blitz leading up to Toy fair next week.....but don't hold your breath.The interest otherwise from retailers just isn't there, and if retailers don't want to order product....Hasbro has no need to make any.

Everything that Hasbro has done over the past decade or so for GIJOE has languished on the shelves. While we think that something like POC was a hit.......it wasn't. Large amounts of it stayed on the pegs. Retailers both did not stock a lot of it (coming off the glut of ROC stuff) and it did not sell fast enough. Just like all the other GIJOE stuff.

Like it or not, the deck is stacked against the brand and the retailers have no interest in playing fair with or having consideration for such a tiny amount of product. GIJOE could vanish, it's trademarks could lapse and it wouldn't make a single bit of difference to Hasbro's bottom line. It's a sentimental brand that is........quite frankly.......tired out and stale.

As for the brand overall, well, this has been an ongoing discussion throughout the Joe community. Seems Hasbro has no faith in it, which is a real shame. You'd think that with two recent relatively successful big budget movies and the 50th anniversary Joe would be on a high, but it feels like it is in one of its all-time lows. But the past 5 years or so have been so schizoid with the brand. I think they really need to find a new direction and focus everything on it rather than going to multiple directions and constantly pulling the plug after they just get started.

Blame the retailers, not Hasbro. And blame Paramount for the movie delay which killed the retailer interest in the Retaliation product and the brand.Hasbro has apparently proposed all kinds of stuff for the 50th, and apparently none of it has interested any retailers. Let's repeat that: Hasbro WANTS to unroll 50th anniversary stuff, but retailers have NO interest in carrying ANY of it.

Correction: Amazon Kindle has just today announced that GIJOE is one of the properties opened for their published fan-fiction thing. Big whoop. That MIGHT be the opening salvo in some kind of 50th Ann. Joe blitz leading up to Toy fair next week.....but don't hold your breath.The interest otherwise from retailers just isn't there, and if retailers don't want to order product....Hasbro has no need to make any.

Everything that Hasbro has done over the past decade or so for GIJOE has languished on the shelves. While we think that something like POC was a hit.......it wasn't. Large amounts of it stayed on the pegs. Retailers both did not stock a lot of it (coming off the glut of ROC stuff) and it did not sell fast enough. Just like all the other GIJOE stuff.

Like it or not, the deck is stacked against the brand and the retailers have no interest in playing fair with or having consideration for such a tiny amount of product. GIJOE could vanish, it's trademarks could lapse and it wouldn't make a single bit of difference to Hasbro's bottom line. It's a sentimental brand that is........quite frankly.......tired out and stale.

While I don't disagree that the retailers are partly to blame, (and the movie delay) I don't think Hasbro is entirely innocent in the way they've handled the brand. I think a lot of the languishing over the past decade has to do with Hasbro's lack of direction and their constant starting and stopping of lines. 25th Anniversary, Sigma 6, PoC, Resolute, Renegades, the movies. They've been all over the place. Constantly pulling the plug on things shows little faith in the brand. PoC had some of the best figures ever produced in the line, but there was no harmonious support attached to it. So can you blame retailers for not wanting to jump in at this point? It's like a vicious cycle where they can all blame each other. Bottom line, the brand is a mess right now. I said this on another board, I think they need to step away, regroup and do a full on re-launch with full coordinated multi-media backing. Ala 1982. Something that shows real faith in the brand again that the retailers can get behind. Probably behind a video game ala skylanders or angry birds that ties the toys in directly with the game. Something relevant to todays kids. It may not be what we want but it could revitalize the line.

Anyway, this is getting off topic, my apologies. But I do think it's interesting to discuss and isn't entirely unrelated. Perhaps if the brand is revitalized, one day the con will come back.

It's like they're trying to follow the Transformers method - which would be fine, except that unlike Transformers, they almost NEVER have a solid media (i.e. TV show) backing it up.

I mean, I dunno - isn't that toy marketing 101? Toy+cartoon+comic book (at least in the '80s)+videogame=success? I mean, not necessarily but without the media behind it, it's almost destined to fail...

Feel very bad about this since the Cdn Joe Con also generated a lot of discussion on this site. I doubt I would have ever attended but I always looked forward to all the board discussions pre/post con.Many thanks to everyone over the years but most of all to the Joe Con staff.

Thanks Mike for the update, even if it's bad news. It took me awhile to react to it, as I was a little short of words to be honest.

I can remember blowing a good part of my savings on many occasions I did the trip to the Canadian Joe events. Why did I still bother going? For the love of it man. A know alot of people from my area that wouldn't go on the premise they didn't have a ride and wouldn't be willing to put down for the cost of a travelling fare. My point of view was always when I say that I really love something, and I do love GI joe at its essence, I do whatever I can to at least try to make it happen. I had to buy a 100$+ bus ride during the 2007 and 2008 Joe Meets (my favorite events btw), and I never complained one moment about spending a little more on the transit buses as well. I rarely got to leave Montreal until I heard about the CanJoeMeet. I don't regret going because I got to live the excitement of venturing on my own in GTA territory several times, and even got to discover Hamilton, which had some great local architecture btw. And the city bus people I rode with were absolutely friendly and helpful with directions and referring places to go eat. What many travelers would've considered an incommodity or a limitation, I saw as a new thrilling experience anyway.

I think it had to do with Hamilton. The Toronto conventions didn't have the same effect on me, but I did get to meet alot more Canuckleheads in person over there. And my older daughter still speaks about wanting to return to the same Sheraton Hotel as she remembers the thrill of going through the vendor aisles and receiving from our own Propergrounds' hands the Carebears movie DVD that he helped me find. Lots of great memories revolving around the con, and for every year there was a different highlight.

So anyway, long story short, let's not forget also to mention that with your store the responsabilities must have multiplied, and while I believe that business must be keeping you very busy right now, I say maybe that the timing did its own Wonder. We have a saying in South America, that there is not a bad event that comes without a good one. So I'm confident that it's all for the best.

I'd like to say alot more, and I could, but I think I said enough for now (it's the third time I try to type something and it wasn't easy to come out with this). So I'll just end by saying thanks Mike for the selfless and countless efforts you've made at your expense to make sure that there is an official Canadian Joe Community in the first place.

I just realized today after washing my red Canadian Convention Gi joe T-Shirt that I will dearly miss those, especially since I've been using my convention T-Shirts like there would always be other new ones to replace my old ones, but there won't...